I prefer the water flower, basically, the block before water stops, you dig down 1 block, so the water flows down, you then dig 1 block in fron at this level
add some stairs, add a sign above the 1st dug down block, add water above stairs,

basically the mob gets pushed along, down and then up the stairs, it works awesome, credit goes to splat for perfecting hte design.the mobs a decent distance for pitfall traps or lavablades, I prefer fall traps

Wow. Nice. I was concerned about having an unsightly and high aquaaduct spanning my village. This technique keeps it all on the same level. Of course a mix of method can be used so the water drops one in every 16 or 24 etc (instead of 8 ).

I built my first piston operated mechanism last night - a 2x3 sticky piston block door that opens when you pull a lever.. ..love it. Was great fun learning about how redstone works, but bru was kind enough to pass on some redstone cable which made things alot easier!!

I am going to have a heap of vacant cave space soon so i might use this idea, great way to play around with redstone etc!!